Social Concerns

"Sustainability is about contributing to a society that everybody benefits from, not just going organic because you don't want to die from cancer or have a difficult pregnancy. What is a sustainable restaurant? It's one in which as the restaurant grows, the people grow with it."--from Behind the Kitchen DoorHow do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions--discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens--affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables? Saru Jayaraman, who launched the national restaurant workers' organization Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, sets out to answer these questions by following the lives of restaurant workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Detroit, and New Orleans.Blending personal narrative and investigative journalism, Jayaraman shows us that the quality of the food that arrives at our restaurant tables depends not only on the sourcing of the ingredients. Our meals benefit from the attention and skill of the people who chop, grill, sauté, and serve. Behind the Kitchen Door is a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of dining out. Jayaraman focuses on the stories of individuals, like Daniel, who grew up on a farm in Ecuador and sought to improve the conditions for employees at Del Posto; the treatment of workers behind the scenes belied the high-toned Slow Food ethic on display in the front of the house.Increasingly, Americans are choosing to dine at restaurants that offer organic, fair-trade, and free-range ingredients for reasons of both health and ethics. Yet few of these diners are aware of the working conditions at the restaurants themselves. But whether you eat haute cuisine or fast food, the well-being of restaurant workers is a pressing concern, affecting our health and safety, local economies, and the life of our communities. Highlighting the roles of the 10 million people, many immigrants, many people of color, who bring their passion, tenacity, and vision to the American dining experience, Jayaraman sets out a bold agenda to raise the living standards of the nation's second-largest private sector workforce--and ensure that dining out is a positive experience on both sides of the kitchen door.

A new, deeper look into the lives and minds of today’s young people.

In 2016, Barna and Impact 360 Institute joined forces to conduct the first major national study of Gen Z—the generation born between 1999 and 2015.

At that time, even the oldest members of Gen Z were barely 17, and the youngest had just been born.

That’s why Barna and Impact 360 Institute have teamed up once again—to check back in with this developing generation and to drill down on three new areas:

1. Gen Z's emotional lives

2. Their relationship with technology

3. How they feel about faith and practice it

If you work with 13 to 21 year olds in any capacity…
If you have members of Gen Z in your family...
If you want to know how this generation could reshape the world and the church... 

We strongly encourage you to read this report. 

Inside, you’ll get to know this driven, informed, hopeful-but-skeptical, spiritually open, highly connected, anxious generation. 

Plus you’ll learn strategies for loving and leading this often misunderstood group of young people.

America's foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging. What is race and why does it matter? What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid?

Drawing on her Norton Lectures, Toni Morrison takes up these and other vital questions bearing on identity in The Origin of Others. In her search for answers, the novelist considers her own memories as well as history, politics, and especially literature. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Camara Laye are among the authors she examines. Readers of Morrison's fiction will welcome her discussions of some of her most celebrated books--Beloved, Paradise, and A Mercy.

If we learn racism by example, then literature plays an important part in the history of race in America, both negatively and positively. Morrison writes about nineteenth-century literary efforts to romance slavery, contrasting them with the scientific racism of Samuel Cartwright and the banal diaries of the plantation overseer and slaveholder Thomas Thistlewood. She looks at configurations of blackness, notions of racial purity, and the ways in which literature employs skin color to reveal character or drive narrative. Expanding the scope of her concern, she also addresses globalization and the mass movement of peoples in this century. National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a foreword to Morrison's most personal work of nonfiction to date.

How does Gen Z feel about evangelism? 

Do they participate in it?

What role does evangelism play in the faith journeys of these young Christians?

Barna has partnered with Alpha USA to answer these questions in a new journal featuring new data called Reviving Evangelism in the Next Generation. 

In addition to data and trends, this report also: 

• Profiles young people who are proud of sharing their faith.
• Explores how leaders can support Gen Z in evangelism. 
• Provides you with practical tips for fostering a passion for evangelism in the young people you lead.  

The Church will be shaped by the attitudes and approaches young people bring to evangelism. 

Find out what the future may hold—and how you can guide and support Gen Z in our commissioned work of making disciples.